We feel powerful on top of the Rock
At Peace
Calmness. Peaceful. Breath taking. These are just a few of the words I would use to describe this huge, pink, granite exfoliation dome, that raises 425 feet above ground, 1825 above sea level, and covers 640 acres called Enchanted Rock in Fredericksburg, Texas. The Enchanted Rock State Natural Area is 1643.5 acres. It was designated a National Natural Landmark in 1970 and in 1984 placed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is one of the largest underground rock formations uncovered by erosion in the United States.
Before I go into the details of my experiences and the experiences of others, I feel that it would be a great injustice if I did not share with you the history of this magnificent and mysterious place. The Tonkawa Indians, according to the Texas Park and Wildlife website, believed ghost fires flickered at the top, and they heard weird creaking and groaning. Today geologists now say that these moans and groans were actually from the rock’s heating by day and contracting in the cool night. According to the tales, a conquistador captured by the Tonkawa described how he escaped by losing himself in the rock area, giving the legend of a “pale man swallowed by a rock and reborn as one of their own.” The Indians believed he wove enchantments on the area, but he explained that the rock wove the spells. “When I was swallowed by the rock, I joined the many spirits who enchanted this place.” It wasn’t until 1723 that the first well- documented explorations of the area were done by the Spanish when they intensified their efforts to colonize Texas. The Spanish made several trips to the north and northeast of San Antonio in the mid 1770’s, establishing a mission and presido on the San Saba River and carrying out limited mining on Honey Creek near the Llano River.
I had the pleasure of being introduced to this magnificent place almost fourteen years ago when I was in middle school. Unfortunately, when you are that young you really don’t fully appreciate or understand the magnificence of nature and all the wonder it holds. Like all things, my first experience was a very memorable one for things other that the beautiful scenery. Our sponsors had let us climb this magnificent piece of nature by ourselves with the only rule is to not go alone and to be back by a certain time. A group of friends and I decided to be daring and as soon as we had reached the top ,where only a single tree grows, we decided to go down a steeper way, not realizing how steep it really was. We had to slide down on our bottoms to safely get down. Its amazing how granite will tear blue jeans right up. I had tears on my pants that were a little embarrassing. Then came the scary part we had about fifteen minutes to get back to the bus and we had no idea where we were at. We were fortunate to run into a group of older gentlemen that told us which way was the fastest way to go. Unfortunately they howled to each other which made us think, ”Oh my gosh, these guys are crazy and we are going to die!” We made it in time to catch our bus with torn pants and cactus thorns in our hands but a fun time and tons of memories.
The first person that I wanted to interview was my husband, Mike, whom I introduced to Enchanted Rock about five years ago while we were still dating. It was brave of him to trust me to take him to a place in the middle of nowhere to climb this rock. “The most exciting thing for me was the caves, “he said. Mike is deathly afraid of spiders and was scared to death of the daddy long legs because they are the most venomous spiders in the world even though their fangs are like our hair. We went to one of the smaller caves with my brother and another one of our friends. It was a fun and scary experience. It was all about trusting the person that was in front of you. On our way out we saw white tail deer in the parking lot which is common in the area along with other wildlife such as rock squirrels, armadillos, rabbits and turkey vultures. It was such a great experience for all of us because it was the first time we had seen a sunset together and it was so beautiful.
Vianca is someone very special to me. I have known her since the first grade and was with me in the holey pants incident. We made it a couples trip in 2004 to get a more spiritual aspect. She is a very spiritual person and “ could clearly see that only God could create such a peaceful and spiritual place.” This was our second trip to the Rock so it was fun to compare this time to the first time we got lost and confused. “I remember in middle school meeting up with the ‘Wolf Men’ and being scared out of our minds, we just a couple of girls and were really scared. Now we can look back and laugh about it now as adults and reflect on how that moment probably brought us together much closer as friends.”
We have been to The Rock as a family also. I was still young and my mother, father, and two brothers were excited to go. "We don't usually go do 'family outings'" my mother said,"but it seemed like fun and Irma was excited about it." My mom didn't make it to the top but the rest of us did. When we got up there we noticed that it was going to rain so we started to head down. Since I had been there already I knew the right way to get down but my older brother, Tito, insisted we down another way, thinking it was the right way. "It all looked the same to me." Well that way wasn't the right way and there were a bunch of wobbly rocks. My dad had to help us out a lot getting down. "I was there just looking at them coming down and I was scared." In the end we were all ok and can joke about it now.
This beautiful place is open all year long with the exception for public hunts. When the park reaches capacity in parking it frequently closes down on weekends but reopens later in the evening. You can enjoy camping either at sites or if you want they have a 4 mile back packing trail. Also if you’re the more adventurous type you can call the park headquarters and set up a place to go rock climbing and you’re the more easy going type there are picnic areas, bird watching areas, and star gazing since there is not a lot of air pollution. The Enchanted Rock State Natural Area has something for everyone and it comes with one guarantee : You will truly have an experience of a lifetime!